


Luckiest Bloke

by raelee514



Series: Tattoo [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, Tattoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 14:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raelee514/pseuds/raelee514
Summary: Jimmy wakes up with a tattoo...





	Luckiest Bloke

**Author's Note:**

> Here you go Knullabulla though probably not really what you were hoping for.

Jimmy woke slowly aware that there was pounding. A constant steady, throbbing and loud pounding. It felt like it was attacking him from both the inside of his skull and the outside. He groaned into his pillow and then scowled into it as he hit a disgusting wet spot — was he drooling. He moved onto his back and cringed. The room was too bright, the usually dull gray ceiling seemed to be shining down on him. Laughing. The pounding wasn’t letting out, and he realized his whole felt like it was throbbing and each pound was jolting a stab of pain against the inside of his brain. 

“Stop…” he muttered, and he stumbled off his bed. He went toward the sound. Only it seemed linked to the pulse in his templed. He pulled open the door and blinked at Thomas. His fist was raised, ready to hit the door and he stopped it a split second before it hit Jimmy’s nose. “Oy, I don’t need a bleeding nose bleed…” he snapped.

“What you need is to get up. The family may be vacationing in London, but we aren’t.” 

“What time is it,” he looked around, and it seemed rather bright, too bright, it was almost unnatural. He rubbed his eyes and realized his head was still pounding, louder than what’d been Thomas’ fist on his door. 

“You’ve got about twenty minutes to get presentable… I told you not to drink too much.” 

“I was out on the scene. The west end is amazing, Thomas — you should’ve come.” He poked Thomas chest with his left hand.

Thomas grabbed his arm. 

“Ow,” he said as a stabbing pain shot up his arm. It was worse than the pounding in his head that kept up the constant dull throb. “What the hell?” 

“Jimmy….” Thomas twisted his arms and was looking at his wrist. “What did you do?”

“What?” He snapped his arm back and looked at his wrist and froze. His skin was bright pink and puffy, suddenly he was hyper-aware of the pain of it, distracted fully from his hung over head. There was a letter on his wrist, it looked like black ink, he pressed his right hand against, trying to wipe it away and made himself hiss in pain. It wouldn’t go away, it was permanent. He glared at it and felt offended he couldn’t remember. He glared at and felt all his skin flush with a deep embarrassed blush because it wasn’t just a letter, no it wasn’t some random letter at all. 

It was a T. A thick black, scripted T. 

“Is that… that’s…” Thomas was sputtering. “That’s a tattoo.” 

“No, it’s not…” Jimmy argued and tried to hide his arm.

“What possessed you…”

Jimmy frowned and tried to remember. He remembered drinking some shots with some rough and tumble type guys and looking at a tattoo of a pin-up girl on one of their beefy arms. Things went fuzzy and black after that though, and he stared at his arm. At his red skin and felt pinpricks of pain unlike anything he felt before — how as it the pounding that woke him up and not his arm? 

“Jimmy.” Thomas sounded panicked. 

He looked at Thomas but instantly had to look away, he felt the T itself throbbing, and he thought this was it. This was it. He was going to die of embarrassment. 

“We got to hide it,” Thomas muttered, and he walked away. 

Jimmy stared at the space he left behind and tried to wake up. He felt foggy and a bit clammy. He felt like maybe he was still a bit drunk. How had he? Why had he? He glared at the tattoo and felt betrayed by it and was rubbing at the sensitive skin again… 

Crazily hoping maybe the ink would smudge. But it didn’t work like that did it and all he did was hurt himself, he hissed and jumped with the pain. He ran a hand over his face and turned toward his basin. The water was lukewarm, but it felt cool against his heated skin. He heard footsteps and turned and saw Thomas standing there with a first aid kit in one hand and one of the gloves he used to hide his scar in the other. 

“Come here,” Thomas said and grabbed the chair that was in the corner behind the door and dragged it over to the bed. Jimmy scowled at the noise of wood against wood, but he walked over and sat on the edge of his bed and let Thomas grabbed his arm. 

“This isn’t good…” he muttered as he salved cream onto Jimmy skin. “I don’t know how…” 

“I didn’t mean too,” Jimmy heard himself whine.

“I told you to stop drinking,” Thomas muttered. “Never should’ve left you alone.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

Thomas pinned him with a dark gray stare his face all hard edges and Jimmy looked away. “Act like it though, don’t you.” 

“Sorry,” he mumbled and watched Thomas wrap gauze around his wrist. 

“What does it stand for anyway?”

“What?” Jimmy asked. 

“The T?”

Jimmy felt his face heat up again and thought if it got hotter he turn into fire. He shook his head though and avoided Thomas’ eyes. “How would I know…not like I remember agreeing to this.”

“Obviously,” Thomas sighed, and he looked around the room. “You’ve got less than ten minutes now, put this on — and we’ve just got to figure out how to keep it from Carson.” 

“Shit,” Jimmy groaned as he realized Carson might very well fire him for this. “What did I do?”

Thomas pressed his lips together, shook his head and stood up. “Get downstairs in time, don’t bring attention to yourself by being late. And for God’s sake don’t act hungover…”

Jimmy nodded and wondered how the hell he could pull that off because he felt like a dead animal at the side of a road. He felt like he'd been flattened like a pancake. His wrist stung and his head throbbed. This was a big fat mess. He watched Thomas leave and felt the only saving grace was Thomas was clueless about what the damn T stood for. 

He was a fool. 

~~~

“James!” 

Jimmy froze by the door leading to the London house’s courtyard. He needed to smoke, he needed the fresh air. He felt like he was walking in a haze, everything was blurry. His head hadn’t stopped pounding, which was an odd blessing because it was distracted him from his wrist. His hand felt weird, wearing one of Thomas’ gloves, the open fingers and it was tight over his palm — it was made to fit Thomas and not him after all. 

But it seemed to be working, he seemed to have gotten away with it — no one was mentioning it, and while he served he was wearing his footman gloves over it. He and Thomas shared a few looks, when his cuffs seemed to roll up too far, a bit of the bottom of the tattoo did stick out of the glove, the frayed ends of the gauze showed as well. It wasn’t the best attempt at hiding a problem but really if they acted normal no one should suspect. 

It was what they both silently hoped. 

But Mr. Carson’s voice boomed, and Jimmy knew, he knew he was found out. And Thomas was nowhere. He swallowed letting himself feel the panic for a quick second, then he schooled his features, put one of his easy smiles and turned around to face Carson. 

“Yes, sir?” he said and was pleased with himself for not sounding cheeky.

“Why is it you have on one of Mr. Barrow’s gloves and bandages on your wrist?”

“Just uh, hurt my wrist…” he stammered.

“What’s this?” Mrs. Hughes appeared, and Jimmy prayed she’d be on his side. 

“James is about to show me his wrist wound. It better not be too unseemly, the Earl of Havencourt is coming to dinner tonight. I will not have any blemishes on the staff.”

“It’s just a bit of a cut,” Jimmy lied. 

“That Mr. Barrow gave you a glove to hide?” Mrs. Hughes asked. 

So much for being on his side, Jimmy thought. 

“Show me,” Mr. Carson boomed.

“No,” Jimmy muttered without thinking. 

Carson’s eyes widened, his eyebrows knitting together and going halfway up his forehead. He stepped close to Jimmy, using his formidable height to intimated him. “What did you say, James?”

“James, don’t make a fuss…” 

“Footman, especially first Footman, take care of their appearance.”

“Why do you think I borrowed a glove from Mr. Barrow?” Jimmy heard himself grouse.

“James, I will not ask again.”

Jimmy sighed and pulled off the glove, wincing a bit as it pulled at the gauze. His skin felt like it was on fire. He frowned as he started unwinding the gauze and wished Thomas was around — he might be able to spin this for him. But maybe not, he looked worried all day, every time he shot a look at Jimmy. This wasn’t going to pretty, and he knew it. 

He unwrapped the gauze and was unable to stop staring right at Carson as he did so — waiting the inevitable reaction to what he’d done. He was doomed. He was probably fired. All because he’d gotten drunk — he should have listened to Thomas. Why hadn’t he? Fuzzy images of the night attacked him, odd out of shape memories and a flash of him pointing at the picture of a T on white paper and going — That. 

The air hurt his skin, and he wanted to hide his wrist immediately. Mrs. Hughes let out a gasp. “What in heaven?” But Jimmy’s eyes were on Carson. His eyebrows got higher and higher, and his eyes bugged out of his face. It was quite cartoonish, and Jimmy knew he’d be laughing if this was happening to Alfred and he was a witness. Though, Alfred would never do something…

“Is THAT?” Mrs. Hughes asked but shook her head. 

“WHAT. IS. THAT!” Mr. Carson yelled, and he looked pale, but a vein was bulging on his forehead. He glared at Jimmy, and his hand came up, and he was pointing at him. “A FOOTMAN DOES NOT HAVE A TATTOO.” 

“It isn’t like I meant to do it,” Jimmy stammered out. 

Carson opened his mouth but nothing came out, he kept pointing at Jimmy, and then the pale pallor on his skin rose up to a bright red. “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. THIS IS? DOES NO ONE UNDERSTAND THE PROPRIETY OF SERVICE.”

“Now, now, Mr. Carson, perhaps we should sit down,” Mrs. Hughes said, turning toward Carson. “There are worse things.”

“THERE ARE NOT.”

“Well, let’s all sit and discuss it…” Mrs. Hughes corralled them both into the room she used as a parlor in the London house. It was nowhere near as cozy and homey as her one at Downton Abbey, but it did do. Jimmy found himself relieved to be sitting and he looked at his wrist… 

He felt horrified himself, but it wasn’t for the reasons of Mr. Carson. 

“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE,” Carson boomed at him. 

“It’s not that big…” Jimmy countered. “The glove hides it.”

Carson sputtered and finally sat down himself. He was red now, and his eyebrows seemed stuck far up his forehead. The vein was throbbing on his forehead, and Jimmy was sure he was done in…

“What’s going on?” Thomas’ head was suddenly in the room. 

Carson rose to his feet. “DON’T YOU PLAY INNOCENT. THIS IS YOUR DOING.”

“He’s not why…” Jimmy started.

“You should have come to me the moment you saw, you saw….” Carson pointed at Jimmy. “You should have told me, but instead you helped his hide it. HIs Lordship saw the gauze and wanted to know what happened. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“That Jimmy hurt himself,” Thomas said over enunciating every word. “It’s not like it can’t be hidden.”

“It is bad enough _YOU_ walk around in that ugly glove.”

Jimmy bristled was second away from snapping something, but Mrs. Hughes beat him to it. 

“Now, now, Thomas was wounded in the war…. James’ situation is quite different. What were you thinking, James?”

“I was… drunk, Mrs. Hughes,” he admitted.

“He can’t very well be blamed for the fact he was being plied with alcohol…” Thomas added.

Mrs. Hughes looked between them, and the picked up Jimmy’s arm. “This doesn’t look like it’s healing well… I want a doctor to look at it.”

“What will we do about service…” Carson lamented. 

“He’ll be wearing gloves, no one will know…”

“The Lordship must be told… There must be repercussions,” Mr. Carson glared at Jimmy. “And I know what I will suggest… to go out and behave in such tomfoolery as getting a tattoo.” 

“I think firing him would be an overreaction,” Thomas said must too quickly and haughtily.

“Do you want to be on the chopping block with him?” Carson boomed. “You are the Under Butler; he is in your charge….”

“Now, now, let’s not be hasty…” Mrs. Hughes sighed. 

“He’s gotten, he’s…. It is not Proper! Not at all. He’s made a fool of us all, if anyone sees, sees, sees, that…” Carson sputtered and then fell back onto the chair. “This is not excusable.” 

“Don’t fire me,” Jimmy begged. “Please. I can hide it. I can look into removing it. It was just a mistake…” 

“THAT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. IT’S NO USE. WE CAN’T DO ANYTHING NOW. DINNER SERVICE IS…” Carson stopped for a breath and tilted forward in his seat.

Mrs. Hughes hovered around him, trying not to her mouth twitch up into an amused smile. Jimmy wished he could feel the humor of it all. “Now, now,” she muttered again. “Breath, Mr. Carson. This is hardly the end of the world.”

“We will see about that!” Carson shouted. “Begone, I don’t want to see either one you…” he shouted. 

Jimmy hurried up and out of the room. Thomas with him. They made their way outside, and Thomas handed him a lit cigarette in record time, his own in his mouth and his cheekbone sucked in deeply as he pulled in the smoke. Jimmy followed suit and wondered if he would stop blushing. 

“Normally, I would quite like to see Carson nearly have a stroke,” Thomas said after a few moments. 

“Same….”

“He didn’t fire you on the spot,” Thomas said. 

“Doesn’t mean he won’t… don’t know why he’s dragging you down with me.”

“Any excuse to get on my case,” Thomas said bitterly. 

“He’s an old stuffy bastard…” Jimmy hissed. 

“Do well tonight… don’t mess up at all. Be the First Footman. We’ll make sure no gauze sticks out and keep the white gloves on the whole time. No one is going to look at your wrist but Carson — hopefully, he won’t give it away. He’s not stealthy him…. Bit of a dramatic, isn’t he?”

Jimmy laughed. “Must be from his time in vaudeville.”

“To see that with my own eyes…’ Thomas chuckled, and their eyes met. Suddenly, Jimmy saw the humor in the whole situation, and he doubled over laughing. “Did you see the vein bulging out of his forehead, it didn’t seem real at all, I thought it might burst.”

“He looked ready to faint when I poked my head in, though he might just keel over — he just might have if Mrs. Hughes wasn’t there. She’s not too fussed by it, well beyond finding it unseemly.” 

“How can you tell.”

“Years of practice. If his Lordship doesn’t see it… and you can keep the glove.”

Jimmy scowled. “It’s tight.”

“Well, your hands are wider than mine.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Weren’t… but I know what that’s like. I’ll do my best to keep you here…” Thomas’ voice lowered, and he looked away. Jimmy felt something he couldn’t place stab at his chest and he sighed out a long stream of smoke. 

“Still, kind of wish he fainted. Be a sight behold,” he muttered wanting to lighten the air between them again.

“What dreams are made of… He might still…” Thomas laughed. “Only you would manage to get a tattoo. I swear you just attract trouble, Jimmy.”

“I can’t help it that I’m immensely attractive and it makes people flock to me.”

Thomas smirked at him and laughed. “I think, I think it’ll be okay.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You’re the luckiest bloke I know.”

Jimmy believed him. He needed to believe him. He didn’t want to lose this job. Not because he’d gotten blind drunk and done something stupid. He looked at his wrist. The T dark and unable to ignore. He flushed again, a deep and hot blush that went down his full body. He glanced at Thomas — he couldn’t lose him and if he was fired he would. 

“If... I’m sorry I made a mess of things,” Jimmy whispered.

Thomas glanced at him. 

“I mean it.”

“I know,” Thomas said, and his eyes fell on the tattoo. “A T?”

He was learning new levels of embarrassment, and he flailed, trying to find a way to cover, to get out of it — to come up with some other meaning for the initial when the door opened. 

Mrs. Hughes walked out, arms crossed over her chest and a stern look on her face. “Mr. Carson has remembered how to breathe…” she announced.

“Mrs. Hughes he can keep it covered,” Thomas started. 

“Mr. Barrow, James can make his own pleas, you sticking in will do nothing to keep Mr. Carson calm — now James, you will keep that covered, you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It will stay a secret between us. I have persuaded Mr. Carson that what the family does not know won’t hurt them. But it must remain a secret.”

Jimmy nodded. 

“I have gone out on a limb, James. You better appreciate it.”

“Yes, yes, Mrs. Hughes.”

“And never do this again… and your privileges to go into the city are revoked for the rest of our London stay.”

Jimmy scowled but forced himself to nod in agreement. 

“And you…” she turned to Thomas again. “Let him face his own consequences. Mr. Carson will come up with a punishment, and I do not want you helping James with the extra work that is sure to befall him. Do you understand.”

Thomas' eyes flashed with annoyance, but he nodded. 

“Good. Now, I must check that Mr. Carson is indeed still breathing.”

“Wish he’d stop breathing,” Thomas muttered the moment she was out of earshot.

“Came close didn’t he…” Jimmy laughed.

“Thought his eyebrows might join his hair and that shade of red he was…” Thomas smirked.

“It was quite, beautiful really, that shade of red.”

Thomas chuckled. 

“Did I just get away with this?” Jimmy asked smiling.

“Seems like you did. Like I said, luckiest bloke I know.”

“And the most handsome,” Jimmy said with a wink. 

Thomas stared at him for a long beat before looking away. Purposely not answering but Jimmy knew he agreed. He glanced at his wrist — and thought he could learn to live with it, with that T on his skin… 

Only he would know why.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Marked Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938544) by [SippingPlotting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SippingPlotting/pseuds/SippingPlotting)




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